I don't know how to summarize this book. It was beautiful and heartbreaking, fresh and classic, magic and fantastic and real and raw at the same time. It takes a story we all know and twists it in a way you'd never expect and yet couldn't happen any other way. It was a gut punch and I need to look into the rest of the series.
This fourth entry tells the origin story of Lundy, a very serious young girl who would rather study and dream than become a respectable housewife and live up to the expectations of the world around her. As well she should. When she finds a doorway to a world founded on logic and reason, riddles and lies, she thinks she's found her paradise. Alas, everything costs at the goblin market, and when her time there is drawing to a close, she makes the kind of bargain that never plays out well. For anyone...
The art is gorgeous, the characters and world are super fun and interesting, it has just the right amount of manga-style silliness, and I’m really interested in the deeper story this volume just touched on.
Meet Coral, a sweet-natured girl who lives with her parents, kid sister Maki, and pet sea otter in the seaside town of Reef Beach. She's no different than any other teenager - except like all inhabitants of New Lemuria, she's not quite human. Coral is a sea sprite, and when not at school, or helping out in her mum's dress shop, or hanging out with friends, she's out catching waves on her beloved surfboard. But Coral's life is about to turn upside down once dreamy fire ifrit, Nick Inferno, comes to town. How can she not crush on this boy…
While I didn't necessarily enjoy this book as much as others, I will definitely admit that it was the best written book I read through the year; I'm not into grimdark so much, but the world was fascinating and excellently fleshed out and the characters were very interesting, and it has left me curious about the rest of the trilogy.
'An epic drama reminiscent of the best classic Hong Kong gangster films but set in a fantasy metropolis so gritty and well-imagined that you'll forget you're reading a book' KEN LIU
'Gripping!' ANN LECKIE, author of Ancillary Justice and The Raven Tower
'Lee's astute worldbuilding raises the stakes for her vivid and tautly-described action scenes' SCOTT LYNCH, author of The Lies of Locke Lamora
*****Shortlisted for the Nebula Awards, the Locus Awards, the Aurora Awards, the Sunburst Awards and an Amazon.com Best Book of the Month*****
Power might fade. Man might forget. But history never dies. Damian Sires might have been a normal young woman, had she not been born with unnatural eyes and a dangerous gift. She has kept both hidden throughout her life from a world that condemns magic. But power is coveted by many, and when her ability begins to spiral out of control, forgotten history is reawakened.
